paul thom the musician as interpreter

GPPC

THE MUSICIAN AS INTERPRETER

THEMUSICIAN

ASINTERPRETER

P a u l T h om

Thom

G r e a t e r P h i l a d e l p h i a P h i l o s o p h y C o n s o r t i u m

P E N NS TAT EPRESS

Among the many practices inwhich musicians engage are sev-eral that may be viewed as modesof interpretation, a kind of interpre-tation that Paul Thom calls perfor-mative to contrast it with anotherkind he calls critical. The differ-ence is that the latter discusses amusical work; the former presentsor enacts it.

This book aims to make the casethat the activities of transcribing,varying, and realizing music areall forms of interpretationand,indeed, that performative interpre-tation overall can be seen as aparadigm of what interpretation is.Thom devotes a chapter to each ofthese three activities and, to makehis philosophical points musically

A Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium Series Book

The Pennsylvania State University PressUniversity Park, Pennsylvaniawww.psupress.org

continued on back flap

continued from front flap

concrete, provides a wealth of illus-trations ranging from classicalmusic to jazz and involving per-formers as diverse as Toscanini andBillie Holiday.

PAUL THOM is Professor of Philo-

sophy and Executive Dean of Arts

at Southern Cross University in

New South Wales, Australia.

Paul Thoms latest book is a valuable and illuminat-ing contribution to the philosophy of music. It focus-es on a number of musical activities not often accord-ed sufficient attention by philosophers, such as thetranscribing of works, the writing of variations, andthe annotating of scores. Thom makes a persuasivecase that activities of that sort, and even more so,that of musical performing, are modes of musicalinterpretation, and thus that musical interpretation ishardly the province of criticism alone, being insteadsomething that pervades musical practice.

Jerrold Levinson, University of Maryland

ISBN 978-0-271-03198-9

9 780271 031989

90000

THE MUS I C I A N A S I N T ERPRET ER

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Studies of the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium

Michael Krausz, editor

Already published:

Joseph Margolis, Michael Krausz, and Richard Burian, eds.,Rationality, Relativism, and the Human Sciences(Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986)

John Caputo and Mark Yount, eds.,Foucault and the Critique of Institutions(Penn State Press, 1993)

Joseph Margolis and Jacques Catudal, eds.,The Quarrel Between Invariance and Flux: A Guide for Philosophers and Other Players(Penn State Press, 2001)

Michael Krausz, ed.,Is There a Single Right Interpretation?(Penn State Press, 2002)

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THE MUSICIAN AS INTERPRETER

T h e P e n n s y l v a n i a S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s sU n i v e r s i t y P a r k , P e n n s y l v a n i a

Paul Thom

Thom bk p i-xxvi 1-102 7/25/07 2:44 PM Page iii

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thom, Paul.The musician as interpreter / Paul Thom.

p. cm. (Studies of the Greater Philadelphia PhilosophyConsortium)

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.ISBN 978-0-271-03198-9 (cloth : alk. paper)1. MusicInterpretation (Phrasing, dynamics, etc.)Philosophy

and aesthetics. 2. MusicPerformancePhilosophy and aesthetics.I. Title.

ML3853.T56 2007781.46'117dc222007026535

Copyright 2007 The Pennsylvania State UniversityAll rights reservedPrinted in the United States of AmericaPublished by The Pennsylvania State University Press,University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Associationof American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Natural, containing 50%post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of AmericanNational Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper forPrinted Library Material, ansi z39.481992.

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Disclaimer:Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

for Cassandra

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Thom bk p i-xxvi 1-102 7/25/07 2:44 PM Page vi

List of Musical Examples ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

1 Transcriptions 1

2 Variations 25

3 Realizations 49

4 Interpretations 71

Bibliography 93

Index 99

Contents

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1.1 Johann Sebastian Bach, Chaconne in D Minor for unaccompanied violin 6

1.2 Ferruccio Busoni, transcription of Chaconne in D Minor for piano 7

1.3 George Frideric Handel, Overture to Esther 91.4 John Walsh, transcription of Overture to Esther for

harpsichord 91.5 George Frideric Handel, transcription of Overture to Esther

for harpsichord 101.6 Ludwig van Beethoven, Scherzo from Symphony no. 5 101.7 Franz Liszt, transcription of Scherzo for piano 111.8 Franz Liszt, paraphrase of Mozarts Don Giovanni 131.9 Anton Webern, transcription of the six-part Ricercar from

J. S. Bachs Musical Offering for brass and harp 161.10 Johann Sebastian Bach, Finale of the Sonata in A Minor for

unaccompanied violin 181.11 Leopold Godowsky, transcription of the Finale for piano 181.12 Jules Massenet, lgie 191.13 Art Tatums transcription of lgie for jazz piano. Transcription

of Tatums Elegy by Jed Distler, Keyboard Classics and Piano Stylist(November/December 1994): 3638. Reproduced by permission ofJed Distler 20

2.1 Ludwig van Beethoven, Arietta from Sonata no. 32 in C Minor, op. 111 30

2.2 Ludwig van Beethoven, Variation 1 on the Arietta 312.3 Johann Sebastian Bach, Aria from the Goldberg Variations 322.4 Johann Sebastian Bach, Variation 16 from the Goldberg

Variations 32

Musical Examples

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x Musical Examples

2.5 Igor Stravinsky, series for Variations (Aldous Huxley In Memoriam).Reproduced by permission of Boosey and Hawkes 33

2.6 Igor Stravinsky, retrograde of the same series. Reproduced bypermission of Boosey and Hawkes 33

2.7 Igor Stravinsky, retrograde inversion of the same series.Reproduced by permission of Boosey and Hawkes 34

2.8 Igor Stravinsky, inversion of the same series. Reproduced bypermission of Boosey and Hawkes 34

2.9 William Byrd, The Woods So Wild, no. 1 352.10 William Byrd, The Woods So Wild, no. 4 362.11 William Byrd, The Woods So Wild, no. 2 372.12 William Byrd, The Woods So Wild, no. 9 382.13 William Byrd, The Woods So Wild, no. 12 392.14 William Byrd, The Woods So Wild, no. 5 402.15 Ludwig van Beethoven, Variation 3 on the Arietta, op. 111 422.16 Johann Sebastian Bach, Variation 20 from the Goldberg

Variations 433.1 Orlando Gibbons, The Woods So Wild 523.2 Theodor Leschetitzky, Chopins Nocturne in D-flat Major,

op. 27, no. 2 553.3 Johann Sebastian Bach, Chorale from Cantata no. 149,

Man singet mit Freuden vom Sieg 65

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The book would not have reached its present state without the generouscriticisms of Jerrold Levinson and an anonymous referee.

I would like to thank Jed Distler for his permission to reproduce part ofhis notational transcription of Art Tatums Elegy. I also thank Boosey andHawkes for their permission to reproduce parts of Stravinskys Variations(Aldous Huxley In Memoriam).

An earlier version of Chapter 4 appeared in my article Toward a BroadConcept of Musical Interpretation, Revue Internationale de Philosophie60, no. 238 (2006): 43752.

Special thanks go to my research assistant Dr. Berenice Kerr and to thewonderful staff of Southern Cross University Library.

Acknowledgments

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And then he sat down at the cottage piano and played us the wholecomposition out of his head, the first and the incredible secondmovement, shouting his comments into the midst of his playingand in order to make us conscious of the treatment demonstratinghere and there in his enthusiasm by singing as well; altogether itmade a spectacle partly entrancing, partly funny; and repeatedlygreeted with merriment by his little audience. For as he had a verypowerful attack and exaggerated the forte, he had to shriek extraloud to make what he said half-way intelligible and to sing with allthe strength of his lungs to emphasize vocally what he played.1

The pianist portrayed in this passage from Thomas Manns Doctor Faustusis doing two things at once. In playing the music, he is engaged in an act ofperformative interpretation. In speaking about the music, he is giving acritical interpretation of it. The object of interpretation is the same in bothcases: it is Beethovens Sonata in C Minor, op. 111. But there are twokindsor two sensesof interpretation. The differences between themcan be explained as follows. A performative interpretation is expressed inaction; it presents the work in a certain light, and because of this, there is asense in which the work is actually there, as part of the performers action.By contrast, a critical interpretation is expressed in words; it discusses thework, and the object of critical interpretation may be absent. The comicjuxtaposition of the two types of interpretation in this passage highlightsthe extent of their differences by showing that they get in each others way.

This book is about musical interpretation. Musical interpretation contrasts

Introduction

1. Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkhnas Told by a Friend, trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), 55.

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xiv Introduction

with critical interpretation, but includes more than performative interpre-tation. An idea of what it includes can be gained by considering a remarkof Alfred Brendels in his essay on Liszts piano playing.2 Brendel says thatLiszt did not teach his pupils how to play the piano; he concentrated oninterpretation. What, then, did he actually teach them? Fundamentally, hemust have taught them the art, rather than the technique, of playing thepiano. This art of turning the score into a performance, however, presup-poses a whole musical culture comprising a richly interrelated set of musicalpracticesor at least, it did presuppose such a musical culture in Liszts day.Included in such a culture is an art of understanding what is explicit in thenotation, an art of disambiguating and correcting it where necessary, ofunderstanding what might be implicit in the notation but would have beenassumed by the composers contemporaries. This is the art of editing key-board music, and it is part of the musical culture to which Liszt and his con-temporaries belonged. It forms part of what I mean by musical interpreta-tion. Liszt himself edited Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier, and among hispupils, Emil von Sauer edited Liszts works, Karl Klindworth edited thoseof Chopin, Hans von Blow edited Beethoven, and Alexander Siloti editedTchaikovskyto name just a few cases. Editing was not always a distinctactivity from transcribing, as Brendel notes: Every edition of older music,with the exception of those by editors like Bischoff and Kullak, was virtu-ally a transcription. Blow corrected Beethoven. Adolf Ruthardt, with noqualifications as composer, virtuoso or musical thinker, turned every master-piece he touched into an Augean stable.3

Related to the art of editing music, then, there is an art of transcriptionin Liszts case, the art of translating orchestral and vocal music into the lan-guage of the piano. This, too, is part of the musical culture in which Lisztflourished, and I include it under the rubric of musical interpretation. So,besides discussing performative interpretation, we shall also be consideringthose musical works thatlike transcriptions, paraphrases, and variationsetsoperate in a variety of ways on preexisting musical material. Lisztmust have passed on some of his knowledge of the art of transcription andparaphrase, because among his pupils, Moritz Moszkowski penned transcrip-tions of Wagner, Moriz Rosenthal of Johann Strauss, Giovanni Sgambati ofGluck, Alexander Siloti of Ravel, Carl Tausig of Bach, and so on.

2. Alfred Brendel, Liszts Piano Playing, in On Music: Collected Essays (Chicago: ACappella, 2001), 280.

3. Alfred Brendel, Turning the Piano into an Orchestra, in On Music, 28283.

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Musical interpretation, therefore, exists at three distinct levels. At theeditorial level, there is an art of deciphering musical scores, of contextual-izing them historically, of adjusting and expanding them to make themsuitable for performance. At the level of composition, there is an art of tran-scribing and adapting certain types of music to a form in which they reinter-pret their originals in the language of the desired performative forces. At thelevel of performance, preexisting material is interpreted or reinterpretedthrough the local and global interpretations of performing artists. FranzLiszt was a master interpreter in all of these ways.

Liszts mastery of the arts of editing, transcribing, and generally arrang-ing music for the keyboard can be gathered from the following description.

In 1844, at the height of Liszts career as a pianist, a lover of Bachin Montpellier, Jules Laurens, reproached him with his charlatanry,and then asked him to play his famous arrangement for the pianoof Bachs Prelude and Fugue in A Minor for organ:

How do you want me to play it?How? But . . . the way it ought to be played.Here it is, to start with, as the author must have understood it,

played it himself, or intended it to be played.And Liszt played. It was admirable, the perfection itself of the

classical style exactly in conformity with the original.Here it is a second time, as I feel it, with a slightly more pictur-

esque movement, a more modern style and the effects demandedby an improved instrument. And it was, with these nuances, dif-ferent . . . but no less admirable.

Finally, a third time, here it is the way I would play it for thepublicto astonish, as a charlatan. And, lighting a cigar whichpassed at moments from between his lips to his fingers, executingwith his ten fingers the part written for the organ pedals, and in-dulging in other tours de force and prestidigitation, he was prodi-gious, incredible, fabulous, and received gratefully with enthusiasm.4

Here we catch the great pianist reflecting on the interpreters aims andacknowledging that they must be adapted to the intended audience. For oneaudience, the work is to be interpreted in the light of the composers inten-tions; for another, the contemporary means of performance is paramount;

Introduction xv

4. Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation (London: Fontana, 1999), 51011.

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xvi Introduction

for a third, the work must be interpreted so as to entertain. Interpretation isnot just interpretation-of and interpretation-by, but also interpretation-for.

The activities of editing music, transcribing it, varying it, and perform-ing it may all have been embodied in the person of Franz Liszt, but thatdoes not make them identical activities, and we should begin by clearly dis-tinguishing them. I shall not have much to say about editing, because itsdifferences from musical composition and performance are clear enough.

Transcriptions

To transcribe a musical work is to adapt it to a medium for which it wasnot originally devised. On the one hand, the transcription shares musicalcontent with the original work; on the other, it reworks that content for anew musical medium. It follows that a transcription of a scored work mustcontain a different set of performance directives from those contained inthe score of the original work. Therefore, if the identity of a musical workdepends on what is prescribed in its score, a transcription is a differentwork from its original. This point is contested by Roger Scruton, whothinks that the vocal score of an opera, in which the orchestral parts aretranscribed for piano, is surely not another work.5 Scruton argues thatthe ruling intention of the transcriber is to preserve the pattern of pitchedsounds as the composer intended it, but without the instrumental colour.He appears to assume that the instrumental color is not part of the work,and that may be a defensible view about a works identity. The view I shalladopt, however, is that the identity of a work is determined by the set ofdeterminative directives for performance in its score. On this view, scoringis part of the works identity. The point is not a crucial one, though. AsScruton himself observes, questions of identity do not ultimately matter.6

Of greater importance is the fact that what is foregrounded in a transcrip-tion is not its difference from the original material, but its sameness. Thatmaterial may be presented in a new way, but the focus is on the materialitself rather than on its reworking. Stephen Davies (writing about Brahmsstranscription of the Bach Chaconne) points out that a performance of a tran-scription is not (thereby) a performance of the work transcribed, adding: Of

5. Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 451.6. Ibid., 452.

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course, it is perfectly natural to say one hears Bachs Chaconne in Brahmsswork transcription. Besides being natural, this is correct. The transcriptionwould be a failure if it did not provide the auditor with epistemic access to(much of) Bachs work. But . . . a performance offering indirect acquaintancewith one work need not be of that work.7

Obviously, the transcribing of a musical work is a different activity fromthat of rendering a performance into notationwhich also goes by thename of transcription.8 In both cases the output is a work for performance,but only in the former is the input such a work. Not so obviously, transcrip-tions differ from paraphrases. Paraphrases, like transcriptions, are of worksrather than themes or styles. And like transcriptions, they adapt old con-tent to a new medium. They differ from transcriptions in that they do nottrack the materials content bar by bar, but instead adopt a looser approachto it, taking bits from here and there in the material, mixing them up, andlinking them by novel transitions that are not to be found anywhere in thematerial.

For Peter Kivy, performances are like arrangements.9 It is true that bothperformances and arrangements can be called versions of their topicworks, but we need to remember that performances are in other respectsunlike transcriptions, in that their topic works are relatively abstract. Thereis also a distinction between work transcriptions and other types of musicalarrangements, such as variations and homagesas Davies reminds us.10 Atfirst glance, it seems as if we could base these distinctions on the differenttypes of object that variations, transcriptions, and homages have: variationsare of themes, transcriptions of works, and homages are to composers (or tothe composers style). Up to a point, this idea works. Homages are indeeddistinguished from transcriptions in the way claimed, and because of this ahomage need not share any musical material with its object, other than theobjects style. A transcription, by contrast, must share material with its topic

Introduction xvii

7. Stephen Davies, Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Exploration(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 179.

8. Ibid., 8 n. 2. For Davies, transcriptions are a type of musical score, but in commonparlance they are a type of musical work. He does not consider this point, but he can accom-modate it by treating the common usage as a secondary sense, derived from the primary one,by applying the name transcription to the content of what he calls transcriptions.

9. Peter Kivy, Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1995), 13338.

10. Stephen Davies, Transcription, Authenticity, and Performance, in Themes in thePhilosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 49.

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xviii Introduction

work in a much more specific way, usually by sharing all the principal me-lodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements. Yet the distinction between tran-scriptions and variations cannot be reduced to the distinction between a workand a theme. A theme may be transcribed, as, for instance, when Brahmstranscribes the Saint Anthony Chorale (along with its variations) for twopianos. Further, a work may become the subject of variations, as in Beetho-vens variations for cello and piano on God Save the King. The distinctionbetween variations and transcriptions will be discussed in Chapters 1 and 2.

Variations

When we hear a variation as a variation, we are somehow cognizant of thetheme as well. We hear the theme in the variation, in a way. The experienceis perhaps like that described by Plato, the experience of intuiting the formin the particulars. The particulars strive after the form, or are approxima-tions to it. The perception is of dependence, not just similarity. MalcolmBudd puts it like this: A common form in music is that of theme and vari-ations. Since an appreciation of a work of this form requires the listener tohear the variations as variations of the theme, the work can be said to beabout the relational property of similarity in differencethe listener under-stands the work only if his experience of the music is imbued with thisidea.11 Similarity in difference can be experienced in two ways: as an expe-rience of a type of sameness, or as an experience of a type of difference.The first type of experience is the more relevant to our experience of tran-scriptions, and the second, to our experience of variations.

We need to ask, however, whether something can be a variation eventhough we do not hear it as a variation. Willi Apel suggests as much whenhe says that the meaning of the variation form lies in change, but changeis one thing, and perceived change another.12 On an objective understand-ing, what differentiates variations from transcriptions is the relation thatbinds them to their originals, regardless of whether this relation is perceivedor not. A variation varies the content, while a transcription varies themedium. More precisely, a transcription varies the medium while not dis-

11. Malcolm Budd, Values of Art: Pictures, Poetry, and Music (London: Penguin Books,1995), 170.

12. Willi Apel, A History of Keyboard Music to 1700, trans. and rev. Hans Tischler (Bloom-ington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 283.

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turbing (so far as possible) the content, whereas a variation retains someparts of the content and varies other parts of it. The question of whetheran objective account of this sort is adequate is addressed in Chapter 2.

Realizations

The performance instructions contained in a musical score explicitly orimplicitly prescribe certain actions on the part of those who aim to complywith that score. They also explicitly or implicitly proscribe certain actions.And they leave certain actions openneither prescribed nor proscribed.13 Iuse the term realization to cover any way of narrowing the set of actionsleft open by such performance instructions, whether this is by way of per-forming the music in question or by annotating the score.

The art of realizing a piece of music includes an art of nuancing the scoresdynamics and its other indications. As exercised during a performance, itinvolves a capacity to depart from a planned reading, adding decorations,flourishes, cadenzas, or other departures from the score. For instance, Lisztinvented new ways of doing things at the keyboard, including a certainway of playing double chromatic scales that departed from the printedscore. All this is local interpretation. At the level of global interpretation,14

the musician-interpreter projects a vision of the work as a whole. Such avision of the work may (or may not) be governed by a literary narrative.Liszts circle, we know, made use of such narratives in interpreting themasters Sonata in B Minor as well as his Ballade in B Minor.15 An aware-ness of these narratives in the audience no doubt helped the pianist projecta global interpretation of the work.

Realizations should be distinguished from both transcriptions and vari-ations. The essential difference lies in the fact that a realization includes itsobject, whereas a transcription or a variation does not. By this I mean thatin order to play a realization of a piece of music, you have to do everythingthat is required in order to play that piece. By contrast, to play a variation

Introduction xix

13. Paul Thom, For an Audience: A Philosophy of the Performing Arts (Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 1993), 77.

14. For this distinction, see Paul Thom, Making Sense: A Theory of Interpretation (Lan-ham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 21ff.

15. Joseph Horowitz, Arrau on Music and Performance (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1999),137, 143.

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xx Introduction

on a theme, you have to do different things from the things you do in play-ing the theme. Similarly, to play a transcription of a piece you have to dodifferent things from what you do in playing the piece.

Stephen Davies thinks that while a performance of a work transcriptionis not a performance of the work, a performance of an arrangement (suchas the Glenn Miller arrangement of In the Mood) is also a performanceof the original song (authored by Joseph Garland and Andy Razaf).16 Ourdistinction between realizations and transcriptions gives us a way of explain-ing this difference. The reason is that the Glenn Miller is a realization of thesong, whereas a transcription is not a realization of its topic work. Any per-formance of Glenn Millers version of In the Mood is also a performanceof the original song, because the performative actions specified by the Millerarrangement include the performative actions specified by the song. Thesame holds for any arrangement of the song that includes its melody lineand harmonies (and whatever other conditions it specifies). The relation-ship is one of realization. If you do the latter, you thereby do the former.The same cannot be said for the Bach Chaconne for solo violin and a tran-scription of it for pianoor indeed of any case in which we are comparinga transcription and its topic work. The identity of the Chaconne is notexhausted by the notes on the page. If it were, then a piano transcriptionthat included all the original notes (along with a lot more) would stand to theBach work just as an arrangement of a song. The point is that Bachs pieceis not just a skeleton for a workit is a work in itself, one that achieves aremarkable fullness, partly by virtuosity, partly by suggestion. Essential toBachs achievement is the paucity of the means he uses. The work is notconstituted solely by its prescriptions for performance, but implicitly pro-scribes certain actions. In declaring itself as a work for solo violin, it pro-scribes filling out the harmonies on the keyboard. In general, a performanceof a transcription is not a performance of the original work, whereas a per-formance of a realization is also a performance of that which is being realized.

The succeeding chapters will discuss the arts of musical transcription,variation, and realization, taking as our point of departure Ferruccio Busonisprovocative ideas on these topics. In Chapter 1, we will critically examineBusonis twin theories that composition is a form of transcription and thattranscription aims to recover the composers original inspiration. Busonisaccount of these matters will be contrasted, unfavorably, with the accountsrecently articulated by Stephen Davies, but I will propose some amend-

16. Davies, Musical Works and Performances, 18081.

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ments to what Davies says. In order to set this theory in an empirical con-text, we will discuss various actual keyboard transcriptionsliteral, cre-ative, and parodicfrom the baroque and Romantic periods, as well asfrom 1940s jazz. We will examine the distinctions among paraphrases andother transcriptions.

In Chapter 2, we will test Busonis ideas about the art of writing varia-tions against a selection of examples drawn from Elizabethan, baroque,and late classical keyboard music and from jazz. We will also contrast hisideas with the remarkable ideas of Nelson Goodman on this topic. Strangelyenough, both authors assimilate variations to the class of transcriptions; Iwill challenge this assimilation on several grounds. Variations foregroundtheir differences with their material; transcriptions foreground their simi-larities with their material. A variations subject can be distinguished fromits theme, and because of this, it can represent its theme in ways that arenot open to a transcription. Further, because variations come in sets, themembers of which may refer to one another as well as to their commontheme, a variations reference to its theme may possess a level of complex-ity greater than what can occur in a transcription.

In Chapter 3, our discussions will center on the idea of a musical realiza-tion. Again, Busonis theories will provide a convenient focus, and again wewill find them wanting when compared with what Davies has to say on thetopic. We will consider several examples of musical realization as recorded onpiano roll, disc, and video. And in the last chapter, I shall attempt to drawthe material together in a philosophical account of these interpretive activ-ities. I shall reject a narrow conception of interpretation according to whichinterpretation is restricted to critical interpretation. A broad concept of inter-pretation takes transcription, variation, and realization to be different modesof musical interpretation linked by similarities of structure and purpose. Iwill show that these similarities are also shared by critical interpretations.

Notes on Representation and Meaning

Throughout the book, I will deploy two key concepts in ways that may notbe congenial to some of my philosophical readers. These are the conceptsof representation and meaning.

Representation is, at the least, a two-termed relation. A representation is arepresentation of an object (that which is represented) by means of a vehicle(that which represents). In a mathematical sense, one series of elements

Introduction xxi

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xxii Introduction

sometimes represents another series of elements: certain elements from oneseries can be mapped onto elements in the other, and there are functionalrelationships between certain features of one series and corresponding fea-tures of the other.17 For example, the positive even numbers (series A) canbe mapped on to the natural numbers (series B) as shown below.

A: 2 4 6 8 10 . . .B: 1 2 3 4 5 . . .

Beyond this mapping of individual members of one series onto individualmembers of the other, there are relations connecting groups of elements inone series with groups of elements in the other. For example, the result ofdividing two elements of series A is a function of the result of dividing thecorresponding elements in series B, as 10/6 is a function of 5/3namely,the former is equal to the latter. Again, the sum of two elements from seriesA is a function of the sum of the corresponding elements from series B, as26 is a function of 13namely, the former is twice the latter. Theserelationships hold by virtue of certain global features of series A. Becauseof the existence of these individual mappings and global relationships,series A can be said to represent series B.

Mathematical representations like this exist eternally and do not dependon human agency. Intentional representations, by contrast, come into exis-tence as a result of human agency, and this difference needs to be takeninto account when we think about such representations. Intentional repre-sentation is a three-term relation between a representing agent, an object,and a vehicle. Because there is a representing agent, those cases in whichthe agent presents the vehicle as representing the object can be distinguishedfrom those in which the vehicle is a representation of the object, but it isnot presented as such. Further, the object is an intentional object. It is not just a thing but a thing as construed by the agent. A drawing of a face,for example, is done by someone, and the face drawn is not just a face, buta face as construed by the artist. In general, a distinction can be drawn be-tween an intentional representations object and any model it may have. Amodel is something that the agent is emulating in the course of the act ofrepresentation. If there is a model in the case of transcriptions, variations,and realizations, it would be another transcription, variation, or realiza-

17. John Daintith and R. D. Nelson, The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (London:Penguin Books, 1989), 281, 160.

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tion. It would not be the musical work that is being transcribed, varied, orrealized.

Intentional representation is different from mathematical representation,but sometimes it mimics mathematical representation as it aims to map thevehicles aspects or elements onto those of the (intentional) object, in sucha way that there are global relationships connecting certain of the vehiclesfeatures with corresponding features of the object. Consider a drawing of aface. The drawing is the vehicle, and the object is a face (not necessarilyany existing face). A drawing of a face not only shows the faces parts (eyes,ears, mouth, and so on), but shows various features of these elements (anexpression such as a smile, for instance) in such a way that these featuresare functions of features of the corresponding parts of a real face.

Philosophers have articulated various specific concepts of intentionalrepresentation. Some philosophers speak of seeing or hearing the object inthe vehicle.18 Because this way of talking makes reference to what can beseen or heard in the vehicle, we have to ask, Seen or heard by whom?Evidently a representation of this type does not just have a vehicle, anobject, and a representing agent; it also has an intended addressee in that itis for an intended audience, the members of which are intended to see orhear it in particular ways. The fulfillment of this intention is facilitated bysuitable resemblances to the represented object, but it additionally dependson the existence of audiences who have learned appropriate ways of seeingand hearing that are acquired by immersion in the experience of relevantrepresentational practices.

There is in this type of intentional representation a characteristic dualityin our visual (and auditory) experience. Our attention is drawn now to theobject, and now, consequently, to the vehicle, and vice versa. Roger Scrutonspeaks here of a double intentionality:

When I see a face in a picture, then, in the normal aesthetic context,I am not seeing a picture and a face; nor am I seeing a resemblancebetween the picture and a face. The face and the picture are fusedin my perception: which is not to say that I confuse the one withthe other, or mistake the reality of either. I am presented with twosimultaneous objects of perception: the real picture, and the imag-inary face. And my response to each is fused with my response tothe other.19

Introduction xxiii

18. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, 122, 125.19. Ibid., 8687.

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xxiv Introduction

I shall call this type of intentional representation experiential representation.Experiential representation is more specific than intentional representation,as we shall see in Chapter 2.

Representation in the arts is characteristically experiential. An experien-tial representation might still be what Arthur Danto calls a mere represen-tation, however.20 An experiential representations object, by definition,can be seen or heard in it, but that does not mean that the object is repre-sented as anything in particular. A portrait of Napoleon could satisfy thedefinition of experiential representation, in that Napoleon can be seen in it,without its representing Napoleon as a Roman emperor or as anythingelse. To put it in terms favored by Danto, the representation might includeno metaphorical transfiguration of its object.21 The conception of an inten-tional representation that represents its object as something or other isimportant in relation to representational art, and I will refer to it as the con-cept of aspectual representation.

I am not assuming that aspectual representations are always experien-tial. That question will be broached in a later chapter. I am assuming thatan aspectual representation applies what may be called a treatment to itsobject, in the sense that it is conceptually coherent. Not every intentionalrepresentation includes a treatment, because in some cases the relevantfeatures of the vehicle do not cohere with one another. It may be that partsof the vehicle apply treatments to parts of the object, without the vehicle asa whole applying a treatment to the object.

Scruton favors an even more specific sense of representation. Herestricts representation to the presentation of thoughts about a fictionalworld.22 We might label this fictional representation. Scruton argues thatmusic, because it does not present such thoughts, does not involve fictionalrepresentation. But of course that does not settle the question of whethermusic involves artistic representation. I shall be arguing that some musicalphenomena do exhibit artistic representationality.

Meaning, like representation, is a concept that philosophers have definedin a multitude of different ways. Scruton makes a fundamental observa-tion: the meaning of music lies within it; it can be recovered only throughan act of musical understanding.23 Thus, to speak of musical meaning is

20. Arthur Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), chap. 6.

21. Ibid., 167ff.22. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, 127.23. Ibid., 211.

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not to commit oneself to thinking that music somehow denotes or refers tosomething beyond itself. (And yet, as we shall see, some music is meaningfulby virtue of such a reference.) Scruton identifies a particular type of mean-ingaesthetic meaningin the following terms: When a critic tells us thatsuch and such is part of the meaning of a piece of music, then what he sayscan be accepted only if we can also experience the music as he describes it.24

Aesthetic understanding is the correlative of aesthetic meaning in Scrutonsaccount: If music has meaning, then that meaning must be understood bythe one who understands the music. Hence the concept of musical under-standing displaces that of musical meaning: we have no idea what musicalmeaning might be, until we have some grasp of the distinction between theone who hears with understanding and the one who merely hears.25 Theonly rider I would add to Scrutons comments is that understanding, likerepresentation, may be experiential or purely conceptualand so, corre-spondingly, may musical meaning.

Introduction xxv

24. Ibid., 227.25. Scruton, Wittgenstein and the Understanding of Music, The British Journal of Aes-

thetics 44 (2004): 2.

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No one has written about the composition and performance of transcrip-tions and variations with a more unified vision, or more practical experi-ence, than Ferruccio Busoni. His Bach transcriptionsespecially the Cha-conne for solo violin, the D Minor organ Toccata and Fugue, and the ChoralePreludesare still in the concert repertoire. His theoretical worksTheEssence of Music and Sketch of a New Esthetic of Musichave becomeclassics. His piano playing is legendary. Busonis theories have many facets,some relevant to work transcriptions, some to variations, and some to therealization of musical works. We shall discuss these different facets sepa-rately in this and the succeeding chapters.

An Idealist Account

In Busonis time, his critics dismissed his transcriptions as of little musicalvalue, and in his own defense he formulated a far-reaching notion of atranscription:

The frequent antagonism which I have excited with transcrip-tions, and the opposition to which an ofttimes irrational criticism

1

Transcriptions

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2 The Musician as Interpreter

has provoked me, caused me to seek a clear understanding on thispoint. My final conclusion is this: Every notation is, in itself, thetranscription of an abstract idea. The instant the pen seizes it, theidea loses its original form. The very intention to write down theidea, compels a choice of measure and key. The form, and the musi-cal agency, which the composer must decide upon, still more closelydefine the way and the limits.1

To compose, then, is to transcribe an abstract idea, and this tran-scription is a realization of that idea, specifying detailssuch as themeasure and key and the musical agencythat are absent in theabstract idea. In describing one activity as both transcription and realiza-tion, Busoni puts aside the ordinary concept of transcription. According tothe ordinary concept of transcription, nothing can be both a transcriptionand a realization, because a transcription takes as its starting point a com-plete musical work that specifies one medium and substitutes the specifica-tion of a different medium, whereas a realization starts with an incompletespecification of a work and completes it by specifying details that areabsent from the original. In the former case there is a process of substitu-tion; in the latter, the process is one of augmentation. Busonis concept oftranscription, then, is an unorthodox one.

Busonis talk of abstract ideas may suggest that he is committed to aPlatonic ontology, but it is not really so. An ontological Platonist wouldhave to believe that abstract musical ideas are discovered, not created, bycomposers, and that they precede that discovery. As I understand it, theabstract ideas that Busoni speaks of do not precede the composers activity,and that activity is thought of as an act of creation, not discovery. Thecomposers abstract idea exists in the composers mind, and Busoni is put-ting forward a psychological theory, not an ontological one, about theprocess of composition.

This, however, is not to deny that Busonis theory shows signs of Platonicinfluence. Composition, he says, works by inspiration and occupies freeheights whence descended the Art itself.2 These metaphors resemble thoseused by Plato in the Ion, where the rhapsode is seen as drawing inspiration

1. Ferruccio Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, trans. Theodore Baker (NewYork: G. Schirmer, 1911), repr. in Three Classics in the Aesthetic of Music (New York: Dover,1962), 85.

2. Ibid., 84.


from a divine source.3 Equally Platonic are Busonis statement that themusical idea loses its original form as soon as it is given a physical embodi-ment and his metaphor of music descending from free heights. The intel-lectual context of Busonis theory of composition is a psychologized Platon-isma musical idealismaccording to which music is primarily mental,and secondarily physical and musical ideas are more real than their phys-ical embodiments.4

Someone with a predilection for realist over idealist ways of thinkingwill find difficulties with Busonis claim that to compose is to notate a real-ization of an abstract idea. First, there is an epistemological difficulty:what evidence is there for the actual existence of these abstract ideas? Insome cases of composition, there is such evidencefor instance, where thecomposer works from a sketch of the incipient work. If, however, there isno sketch, the postulated abstract idea will be entirely private, and in thiscase there will be no public means of checking the composers notationagainst his idea, and no way of verifying Busonis account.

Secondly, Busonis account falsely assumes that the process of composi-tion is goal-directed in a way that it generally is not. The model of thecomposer finding and then transcribing an abstract idea assumes that theprocess of composition has a predetermined, fixed goal. This simplisticview takes no account of the ways in which creative processes undergochanges of direction, sometimes as a result of events in the external envi-ronment, sometimes as a result of physical accidents that open up new pos-sibilities for the emerging work. As Igor Stravinsky observed in his Poeticsof Music: The least accident holds [the composers] interest and guides hisoperation. If his finger slips, he will notice it; on occasion, he may drawprofit from something unforeseen that a momentary lapse reveals to him.5

Even if the composer (or any artist) begins with an abstract idea, thecreative process is not simply one of notating, or otherwise implementing,that idea. If it were so, it would hardly deserve to be called creative. Cre-ativity involves not just impressing form on matter, but also responding tounpredicted situations in the real world. These unexpected encounters maystimulate a creative response that could not have been predicted by an

Transcriptions 3

3. Thom, For an Audience, 9193.4. Geoffrey Payzant, Glenn Gould: Music and Mind (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1984),

80, 81.5. Quoted in Eric Walter White, Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, 2nd ed.

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), 426.



inspection of the originating idea. To an idealist, creativity is a purely men-tal capacity, and the physical world can either be receptive to the impressof the artists ideas or stand as an impediment to their implementation. Toa realist, creativity certainly involves the mind, but it also involves the artistsinventive capacities in making something of unexpected physical realities.

Busoni adapts his general account of musical composition to the particularcase of composing a transcription. He believes that the interpreter shouldstrive to recover the composers inspiration and the works abstract idea:What the composers inspiration necessarily loses through notation, hisinterpreter should restore by his own. . . . it is the part of interpretation toraise it and reendow it with its primordial essence.6 As Harold Schonbergput it (though less metaphysically), the interpreter should bring out theBeethoven in Beethoven, the Liszt in Liszt, the Bach in Bach.7 The ideathat the musical interpreter returns to the composers original inspirationmay owe something to the Neoplatonic belief that whatever derives froma higher principle will resemble it and will ultimately return to it.8 At anyrate, Busonis account of transcription seems to be that the transcriberoperates on the same abstract idea that inspired the composer, engaging inthe same type of process as the composer, but making different choicesfrom those that the composer made. The transcriber, like the composer,creates a realization of the abstract idea through a written score, but choosesa different musical agency from the one chosen by the composer for real-izing this idea. Such is Busonis account of transcription.

An objection suggests itself. If, as Busoni maintains, to notate a work isto transcribe an abstract idea, then every musical work is really a transcrip-tion, and the works that are ordinarily known as transcriptions are in real-ity transcriptions of transcriptions. A sharp-witted philosopher might thinkthat this theory falls easy prey to a fatal objection. According to Busoni,the philosopher might say, to compose is already to transcribe; it follows,then, that what is composedthe musical workis itself a transcription.Now, according to our ordinary conception, transcriptions are of musicalworks. So if all musical works are themselves transcriptions, then (assum-ing that nothing is a transcription of itself) there is an infinite regress ofmusical works, each a transcription of anotherwhich is absurd.

6. Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic, 84.7. Quoted by Ates Orga and Nikolai Demidenko, liner notes to Bach-Busoni Transcrip-

tions, Nikolai Demidenko, Hyperion cda66566.8. Thomas Mautner, ed., The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, rev. ed. (London: Pen-

guin Books, 2000), 381.


But victory is not so easy. Our sharp-witted friend has combined Busonistheory with the commonly used notion of a transcription, according to whichall transcriptions are of musical works. This is unfair, because Busoni putforward his notion as an alternative to the commonly accepted conceptionof transcription. Busonis notion of a transcription includes all musicalworks along with what are commonly called transcriptions. Given this dis-tinction, Busoni can avoid the threat of an infinite regress if he sticks to hissense of the word transcription, rather than the ordinary sense. In hissense of the word, some transcriptions are of musical works, and some arenot; moreover, all transcriptions are also realizations. In the ordinary senseof the word, all transcriptions are of musical works, and no transcription isalso a realization. The infinite regress of musical works arises only on thebasis of two premisesfirst, that all transcriptions are of musical works,and second, that all musical works are transcriptions. In Busonis sense, thefirst premise is false; in the ordinary sense, the second is false. So the threatof a regress vanishes.

Busonis account of transcription may escape this criticism, but it facesothers, including the difficulties that threaten his account of composition(as transcription is a form of composition). According to Busonis account,to transcribe a musical work is to notate a realization of the same abstractidea that gave rise to the work, but to choose performance media otherthan those specified by the composer. Obviously this account, like that ofcomposition, requires the existence of an abstract idea from which theprocess commences. Notice that the abstract idea in question is not prima-rily in the transcribers mind. On Busonis account, it comes from the com-posers mind and is recovered by the transcriber in an act of interpretation.So the transcriber, if not working from a sketch by the original composer,is supposed to be working from an idea in the composers head. As a gener-alization, this suggestion is just as implausible as the suggestion that thecomposer always works from an abstract idea. The truth is that transcribers,even though they have beliefs about the original composers ideas, actuallybase their work not on the composers ideas but on their own, and aboveall on really existing musical scores.

Consider Busonis famous transcription of Bachs Chaconne in D Minorfor unaccompanied violin (arranged for concert performance on thepiano).9 Example 1.1 shows a passage from Bachs Chaconne; example 1.2

Transcriptions 5

9. See Ferruccio Busoni, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and Other Bach Transcriptionsfor Solo Piano (New York: Dover, 1966), 69.



shows the corresponding passage from the Busoni transcription, illustrat-ing the type of textures Busoni employed. Let us grant that Busoni was try-ing to recover Bachs original idea. Even so, we must remember that Busonibelieved that Bach, in composing the Chaconne, derived his inspiration fromthe textures of the organ. Charles Hopkins makes the point: Busonis tran-scription emerges more as an adaptation of an original organ work thanone for violin. Busoni did, in fact, take the view that the grandeur of Bachsconception was ill-suited to the violin and that its realisation in the tran-scribed form, which he had arrived at via, in effect, an internalised organversion, more vividly conveyed the universality of the composers vision.10

One would have to say that if Busonis transcription is bringing out theBach in Bach, then the Bach brought out is not the historical Bach, but a Bach of Busonis imaginings. In reality, he was working from Bachsscoreeven if his work was colored by his own notions about what Bachwas doing.

If we are to follow Busonis usage and understand a transcription as arealization of the original composers abstract idea in different media fromthose specified by the composer, then we have to draw the conclusion thatthe Bach-Busoni Chaconne is not a transcription at all. The same conclu-sion will have to be drawn in relation to most, if not all, of the works thatare commonly called transcriptions. If, on the other hand, our aim is tounderstand what a transcription is, in the ordinary sense of the word, thenBusonis account is of no help to us.

A Realist Account

In the ordinary sense of transcription (as opposed to Busonis sense), thetranscriber transcribes a mind-independent reality. Consequently, there is apublic means of checking a transcription against what it transcribes. (Of

Example 1.1 Johann Sebastian Bach, Chaconne in D Minor for unaccompaniedviolin

10. Charles Hopkins, liner notes to Bach-Busoni Transcriptions2, Nikolai Demidenko,Hyperion cda67324, 1112.


course, the work transcribed must have come into existence as a result ofmental activity, but that is not to say that it depends on any such activity inorder to remain in existence, once composed.)

The process of transcription not only operates on a reality but also pro-duces one. The transcription that is produced, like the work on which it isbased, has certain real features, and some of these will be found in the orig-inal work, while some will not. As indicated in the Introduction, the contentof the transcription is the same as that of the original work, but the tran-scription differs from the original by presenting that content in a newmedium. If the transcription is not performable in the new medium, it islike a directive that cannot be carried out. Such a directive would be unsuc-cessful, because it would not satisfy a preparatory condition that applies to

Transcriptions 7

Example 1.2 Ferruccio Busoni, transcription of Chaconne in D Minor for piano



all directivesnamely, that it must be possible for the addressee to carryout what is directed.11 Therefore, in order to be successful, a transcriptionmust be performable in the medium that it specifies.

This is not a trivial requirement. There are published transcriptions thatdo not satisfy the condition of playability. Some are to be found in JohnWalshs popular anthology Handels Sixty Overtures from All His Operasand Oratorios Set for the Harpsicord or Organ (1750). Some of Walshstranscriptions simply reproduce the pitches and rhythms from George Frid-eric Handels orchestral originals, dumping these pitches and rhythms ontothe harpsichords two staves.12 Walshs transcription of the Overture toHandels oratorio Esther will serve as an example (see examples 1.3 and 1.4below). This transcription is not actually playable on the keyboard unlessit is modified in certain ways. For instance, the player will have to ignoresome of the right-hand ties.13 Indeed, any keyboard transcription of theEsther Overture that preserves all the pieces pitches and rhythms will beunplayableand if unplayable, then unsuccessful. Preservation of the pitchesand rhythms, then, is not sufficient to ensure a transcriptions success.

Nor is it necessary. Terence Best, in his edition of twenty of Handelsovertures in keyboard transcriptions by the composer himself,14 has pub-lished a keyboard transcription of the Esther Overture that is markedly dif-ferent from the Walsh versionand has argued that this is Handels owntranscription (see example 1.5). The differences between the two versionsare striking. Handels version is leaner than Walshs, omitting most of thesecond violin part. The Handel transcription, then, does not preserve allthe original pitches and rhythms. Yet it is a successful transcription, con-veying the originals Italianate energy and elegance.

This, of course, is not to deny that a successful transcription may pre-serve the original pitches and rhythms. Some of Franz Liszts transcriptionsof the Beethoven symphonies provide spectacular examples. Liszt himselfgave a self-deprecating account of these works in his preface to the pub-lished edition: I will be satisfied if I stand on the level of the intelligent

11. John R. Searle and Daniel Vanderveken, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 56.

12. George Frideric Handel, Handels Sixty Overtures from All His Operas and OratoriosSet for the Harpsicord or Organ (London: I. Walsh, 1750), repr. as George Frideric Handel,60 Handel Overtures Arranged for Solo Keyboard (New York: Dover, 1993), 113.

13. These facts led Terence Best to describe this transcription as incompetent. SeeGeorge Frideric Handel, Twenty Overtures in Authentic Keyboard Arrangements, ed. TerenceBest (London: Novello, 198586), 1:xiii.

14. Ibid.


engraver, or the conscientious translator, who grasps the spirit of a workand thus contributes to our insight into the great masters and to our senseof the beautiful.15

Examples 1.6 and 1.7 give an idea of Liszts practice as a transcriber ofBeethoven. In his transcription of this passage, from the Scherzo of theFifth Symphony, Liszt indicates the original instrumentation, thus demon-strating his concern with fidelity to his model. The fact that he succeeds inpreserving all the original pitches and rhythms shows that same concern.Liszt also gives an alternative version playable on pianos with fewer thanseven octaves, thus demonstrating his desire to adapt the music in a playableway to various new media.

If preservation of the original pitches and rhythms is neither necessarynor sufficient for a transcriptions success, and part of that success consists ofretaining the content of the original work, then we are left wondering what

Transcriptions 9

Example 1.3 George Frideric Handel, Overture to Esther

Example 1.4 John Walsh, transcription of Overture to Esther for harpsichord

15. Franz Liszt, Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 15 Transcribed for Solo Piano (Mineola,N.Y.: Dover, 1998), vii; translation by Alan Walker.



Example 1.5 George Frideric Handel, transcription of Overture to Esther forharpsichord

Example 1.6 Ludwig van Beethoven, Scherzo from Symphony no. 5


is required in order for that content to be retained. The meaning of thepreservation of content is not always clear. I believe that there is no absolutecriterion on the basis of which we can give a uniform determination of whatshould be included in a works content. The transcribers decision aboutwhat to count as the works content will be relative to his or her purpose.

In his article Transcription, Authenticity, and Performance, StephenDavies expresses the goal of transcription as to reconcile the musical con-tent of the original work with the limitations and advantages of a mediumfor which that content was not designed.16 In the absence of an absolutecriterion for determining content, I think we can say that the reconciliationof which Davies speaks comes to this: that in satisfying the requirementsfor a successful transcription, the transcriber must find a criterion for thepreservation of the models content that does not conflict with playabilityin the new medium. Walshs failure to find a satisfactory reconciliation oftranscriptions two functions can be contrasted with Handels success indoing so (by omitting some of the orchestral texture in a way that produceda convincing harpsichord piece conveying some of the originals sense) andwith Liszts success as well (even as he preserved all the original pitches andrhythms).

Transcriptions 11

Example 1.7 Franz Liszt, transcription of Scherzo for piano

16. Davies, Transcription, Authenticity, and Performance, 49.



The Intentionality of Transcription

The transcription and the original work, though realities, are also culturalproducts. Because of their status as cultural products, they are connectednot only by relations of similarity and difference, such as might hold betweenpairs of naturally occurring things, but also by intentional relations thatcan hold only in a context of human design. The transcription is an inten-tional representation of the work. In standard cases, the transcriber pre-sents it as such. Further, the transcriber creates the transcription after thefashion of a mathematical representation that maps the sequence of theworks temporal parts while reflecting certain global features of the origi-nal work.

The mapping of the original works parts may be selective. Such is char-acteristically the case in those transcriptions that select a handful of tunesfrom an opera and weave them together in the form of a paraphrase orreminiscences. Of these, Charles Rosen observes: The finest of the oper-atic fantasies . . . Norma, Les Huguenots, and Don Giovanni . . . juxta-pose different parts of the opera in ways that bring out a new significance,while the original dramatic sense of the individual number and its placewithin the opera is never out of sight.17 Rosen is talking about Lisztstreatment of his material. In the Don Giovanni paraphrase, for instance,Liszt represents different themes from the opera as being juxtaposed, therebyrecalling their original meanings while suggesting new meanings, as in thepassage (example 1.8) where he interweaves the pathetic figuration ofthe Overture with the Statues warning phrases from the cemetery and theChampagne Aria. The already sinister quality of the Statues warning isheightened by its juxtaposition with the pathetic tones of the Overture; theChampagne Aria sounds more futile and hollow than ever when set overthose tones from the Overture.18 By these devices Liszt does indeed bringout a new significance (as Rosen puts it), and this significance is achievednot only on a conceptual level but experientially as well, as we hear thequoted fragments in Liszts work.

Davies distinguishes a variety of purposes for which transcriptions aredesigned.19 These purposes entail different ways of representing the origi-nal work. Some transcriptions are designed to facilitate rehearsal of a work

17. Rosen, The Romantic Generation, 528.18. Ibid., 53040. Rosen gives a detailed analysis of the semiotic effect of these combina-

tions on the listener.19. Davies, Transcription, Authenticity, and Performance, 5153.


(e.g., piano scores of an orchestral ballet score). In such cases, the transcrip-tion is designed to represent the original work in an experiential sense. Thismust be so, because the rehearsing dancers are meant to hear the originalscore in the piano version. In fact, if this type of transcription is to repre-sent the original work, the only requirement is that the work be recogniz-able in the transcription.

Other piano reductions have a different aim. Sometimes, these reductionsserve a pedagogical purpose: they provide material on which students canpractice their skills at orchestration. The students activity is then governedby rules, and the constraints on what counts as a successful transcriptiondepend on what those rules are. If the rule is simply that the students haveto orchestrate the music without departing from the pitches and rhythms inthe transcription, then the preservation of original pitches and rhythms isthe only constraint on the way in which the transcription represents theoriginal work. Davies points out that some transcriptions go beyond thesepragmatic or pedagogical purposes and are designed to reflect upon thework transcribed, enriching our understanding and appreciation of themerits (and demerits) of that work.20 Because reflecting on the originalwork entails representing it as something or other, transcriptions havingthese aims must function as aspectual representations.

Transcriptions 13

Example 1.8 Franz Liszt, paraphrase of Mozarts Don Giovanni

20. Ibid.



Busonis Bach Chaconne and Liszts transcription of Beethovens Fifth are,in their different ways, both experiential and aspectual representations ofthe works transcribed. An acculturated listener would have no difficulty inhearing the transcribed work in the transcription. A treatment is applied tothe transcribed work, because it is not merely represented, but representedas something. What the object is represented as can be gleaned from ourearlier discussion. The Busoni Bach Chaconne transforms Bachs slendersound structure into a grandiose edifice permeated by organ sonorities.The Liszt version of Beethovens Fifth Symphony exudes the energy andheroism of Beethovens original, and in addition (as a work for perform-ance), Liszts transcription exemplifies the idea of the pianist as hero as wellas the idea of the hegemony of the piano. By the latter, I mean the attitudethat Liszt expressed so clearly in his preface: As a result of the vast devel-opment of its harmonic power, the piano is trying more and more to takepossession of all orchestral compositions. Within the compass of its sevenoctaves it is capable, with but a few exceptions, of reproducing all the fea-tures, all the combinations, and all the configurations of the deepest musicalcreations. And it leaves to the orchestra no other advantages than those ofcontrasting tone colors and mass effectsimmense advantages, to be sure.21

Every successful transcription represents its original. This representationmust be experiential. The function of transcription is to maximize the rec-ognizable preservation of the original works features consistently with adap-tation to the new medium. A transcription that could not be recognized assuch would be a dysfunctional one. By contrast, it is possible for a success-ful transcription to offer no particular treatment of its models contents.For instance, if we were to introduce minimal modifications into WalshsEsther transcription to make it playable, it would be a successful transcrip-tion by virtue of having reconciled content and medium, but it would lackany particular treatment of Handels orchestral material. It would not qual-ify as an aspectual representation.

Illumination and Transformation

Let us assume that we are dealing with a transcription that includes sometreatment of the original work, or in other words, a transcription that rep-

21. Liszt, Beethoven Symphonies, vii.


resents the work aspectually. Two broad types can be distinguished. Theaspectual representation may cohere with the original works features andmay support and strengthen the original works aims, perhaps by illuminat-ing the original work. In a second type, the aspectual representation maynot cohere with all of the original works features and may not supportthat works aims; rather, it transforms the work in some significant way.Such a transformation may or may not be internally coherent, even if someof its features do not cohere with features of the original. A lack of internalcoherence would indicate that the transformation had, in a certain sense,failed; nonetheless, this is a possible case and should be considered. On theother hand, if the transformation is internally coherent (but not fully coher-ent with the original work), then it may or may not be implicitly comment-ing on that work. If it does not offer such comment, the transformationsimply supplants the original. If it does comment on the original work,then it may operate in such a way as to undermine that original, perhapsby parodying it.

Illumination

One transcription that casts new light on the work transcribed is GlennGoulds piano version of Wagners Die Meistersinger Prelude.22 This is nota transcription for a pianist to perform publicly; rather, it was writtenspecifically for the recording studio. Gould explains: You can usually getthrough the first seven minutes without incident, and then you say, Okay,which themes are we leaving out tonight? . . . For the record, I wrote apiano primo part for the last three minutes, recorded it, put on earphones,and then added whichever voice was missing as a piano secondo. Gouldwas clear that he wanted the work to be heard as a contrapuntal piece:Its so contrapuntal that it plays itself.23 As a result of Goulds novelscoring, the counterpoint is indeed audible to a far greater extent in thetranscription than in the orchestral version. Arguably, Goulds transcrip-tion does not depart from Wagners aims but supports them in such a wayas to illuminate the work.

Transcriptions 15

22. Glenn Gould, perf., The Glenn Gould Edition: Wagner, Siegfried-Idyll, Wagner-Gould,Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg, Gtterdmmerung, Siegfried-Idyll Piano Transcriptions, Sonysmk 52650), track 2.

23. Quoted in Michael Stegemann, liner notes to The Glenn Gould Edition, 6.



Transformation

Roger Scruton reminds us that a transcription may have aesthetic proper-ties quite divergent from those of the original work while retaining all theoriginal pitches and rhythms. He refers to Anton Weberns orchestration ofthe six-part Ricercar from Bachs Musical Offering (example 1.9): herethe orchestration compels you to hear Bachs melodic line as background,the foreground being occupied by the short motifs which, for Webern, formthe true substance of this extraordinary work.24 Scruton considers thatWeberns arrangement is not really a version of Bachs fugue at all,25 but anew work:

the melodic line is broken into motifs, and stuttered out in timbresso opposed that the piece seems as though pulverized and reconsti-tuted out of tones that Bach would never have imagined. . . . It is asthough Webern had set himself the task of composing anew theRicercar, from the sensibility of the serial composer, but arrivingat the very same notes that Bach wrote. Not surprisingly, the resultis not a version of Bachs great fugue, but another workand aminor masterpiece.26

Example 1.9 Anton Webern, transcription of the six-part Ricercar from J. S. Bachs Musical Offering for brass and harp

24. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, 46. In treating Weberns orchestration as a transcrip-tion, rather than a realization, I am assuming that Bachs original is scored for keyboard.

25. Johann Sebastian Bach and Anton Webern, Ricercar, Mnchener Kammerorchesterwith the Hilliard Ensemble, Christoph Poppen, ecm New Series 1744 B0000048-02, track 1.

26. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, 99100.


Certainly the Webern is another workbut that is always true of a tran-scription. In calling it not a version, but another work, Scruton drawsattention to the fact that this transcription presents a highly distinctivetreatment of its original. In a significant and coherent way it departs fromBachs aims and makes something new of the work. Nevertheless, it doesnot imply any (favorable or adverse) comment on Bachs work.

To me, the aesthetic coherence of Weberns treatment of Bach seems tobe lacking in some of Leopold Godowskys Bach transcriptions (see ex-amples 1.10 and 1.11). In 1924, Godowsky published a number of tran-scriptions of selected Bach sonatas, partitas, and suites for either unaccom-panied cello or unaccompanied violin. Listening to them, one is mightilyimpressed by the power of their pianism and the amazing, and at times off-putting, mixture of Bachs style with more recent traditions, as at the startof the Finale of the A Minor Sonata. Here, the cheeky bass line (particularlythe pi piano in the second bar) suggests something vaguely Russian anddistinctly comicqualities that have nothing to do with Bachs originaland that sit uneasily with the remainder of Godowskys transcription.

As we have seen, a transcriptions lack of coherence with the originalsometimes creates a new meaning possessing its own internal coherence,but not in this case. The effect, on this listener at least, is one of confusion.Bachs music can be heard in the transcription, but it is swamped by analien setting that neither creates a new totality nor offers any comment onthe original.

Another type of transformation is illustrated by jazz legend Art Tatums1940 version of Jules Massenets lgie.27 Brian Priestley notes thatTatums speciality. . . was to take a familiar melody, reharmonise it anddecorate it with arpeggios and complex runs, sometimes in a rubato man-ner which was new in a jazz context and which made his in-tempo pas-sages all the more effective. In this way the piece became a completely newexperience, and two excellent if untypical examples are his versions ofMassenets lgie (which manages to incorporate a bizarre quotation fromThe Stars and Stripes forever) and of Dvorks Humoreske.28 The workthat Tatums Elegy transcribes is a song composed by Massenet for insertioninto his incidental music for Leconte de Lisles verse play Les rinnyes (1873).Martin Cooper describes the songs mood as one of graceful nostalgia,

Transcriptions 17

27. Art Tatum, perf., The Definitive Art Tatum, Blue Note 7243 5 40225 2 4, track 3.28. Brian Priestley, Ragtime, Blues, Jazz, and Popular Music, in The Cambridge Com-

panion to the Piano, ed. David Rowland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),218. Art Tatum, Art Tatum: Jazz Masters, arr. Jed Distler (New York: Amsco, 1986).



while noting that it seems comically ill-assorted with the savage materialof the Greek tragedy into which Massenet inserted it.29 The original song,with words by Louis Gallet,30 can be seen in example 1.12. Tatums arrange-ment, Elegy, replaces the nostalgic reverie of the original with a hecticright-hand vamp accompanying the melody in the bass (example 1.13).31

The lack of respect for Massenets music is further heightened by thepresence, in the midst of these variations, of quotations from Souvenirand The Stars and Stripes Forever. What, asks a straight-faced GuntherSchuller, have these got to do with Massenets lgie?32 Howard seesthese interpolations as cadenza-like interludes,33 taking the specific form ofquodlibets, comparable to Bachs use of two popular tunes in the last of his

Example 1.10 Johann Sebastian Bach, Finale of the Sonata in A Minor forunaccompanied violin

Example 1.11 Leopold Godowsky, transcription of the Finale for piano

29. Martin Cooper, Massenet, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), 11:801.

30. Jules Massenet, lgie (London: Edwin Ashdown; Sydney: D. Davis, c. 1890).31. Joseph A. Howard, The Improvisational Techniques of Art Tatum (Ph.D. diss.,

Case Western Reserve University, 1978), 2:147, measures the tempo as 104.32. Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 19301945 (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1989), 485.33. Howard, Improvisational Techniques, 1:27577.


Goldberg Variations.34 He refers to Donald Grouts definition of this typeof musical quotation, which characterizes it as aiming to make an incon-gruous and absurd mixture of texts.35 The interpolation of these elementsinto the piece is not lacking in meaning (as Schullers rhetorical questionsuggests). It simply underlines the comic intent of the whole piecewhichindeed is obvious from its use of a drone bass with The Stars and StripesForever. As if to underline the point, Tatum concludes with what soundslike a spoof on the closing series of chords in Rachmaninoffs C-sharpMinor Prelude.

In all these ways, Tatums treatment of the Massenet song does notchime in with Massenets aims, but clashes with them instead. Yet theeffect is one of parody, not incoherence. In fact, Tatums treatment of theMassenet song fits the pattern of parody as described by Margaret Rose:parody in its broadest sense and application may be described as first

Transcriptions 19

Example 1.12 Jules Massenet, lgie

34. Ibid., 1:337ff.35. Donald J. Grout, A History of Western Music (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 217.


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imitating and then changing . . . another work.36 According to Rose, theparodic nature of a work is signaled by the comic incongruity betweenthe original and its parody and by the changes made by the parodist tothe original by the rewriting of the old text, or juxtaposition of it with thenew text in which it is embedded. These descriptions neatly fit TatumsElegy. Rose goes on to identify a characteristic ambivalence of parodytoward its object. On the one hand, the imitation by the parodist of achosen text has the purpose of mocking it and . . . the motivation in paro-dying it is contempt. On the other hand, the parodist imitates a text inorder to write in the style of that text and is motivated by sympathy withthe imitated text.37 One can perhaps hear the first of these motivations inthe savage reversals to which Tatum subjects Massenets song. The secondmotivation is detected by Ray Spencer, who speculates that Tatums use ofclassical material was motivated by his desire to respond to those whothought that the Negro was not clever or educated enough to tackle any-thing but jazz.38

The Cultural Value of Transcriptions

Deprived of Busonis general argument for attaching high aesthetic value totranscriptions, can we find another way to articulate their value? Our accountof the notion of transcription does not point to any uniform source ofvalue, other than to say, with Scruton, that transcriptions play a role, or

Example 1.13 Art Tatums transcription of lgie for jazz piano. Reproducedby permission of Jed Distler

36. Margaret Rose, Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993), 45.

37. Ibid., 45, 46.38. Ray Spencer, The Tatum Style, Jazz Journal (1966): 12. Quoted in Howard, Impro-

visational Techniques, 1:354.


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roles, in a musical culture.39 But this statement needs elaboration, becausethe roles that transcriptions play in a musical culture are many and vari-ous, and (as we saw in the Introduction) a musical culture comprises, forexample, music making, participating in living musical traditions, and exer-cising the craft of music.

The roles played by transcriptions in a musical culture can be articulatedwith reference to our conceptual frameworks of intentional, experiential,and aspectual representationand of illumination, transformation, and par-ody, as against incoherent treatments. Daviess categorization of transcrip-tion types will also be useful. Music making takes many forms, and someof these make essential use of transcriptions (as a rehearsal aid, for instanceDaviess first type of transcription). Such transcriptions have to incorporatean experiential representation of the transcribed work, so that the work isrecognizable in the transcription. But there is no need for the representa-tion to be aspectual. Indeed, an aspectual representation, which gives themusic an aspect that it lacks in its original form, could conflict with thetranscriptions purpose of building up in the dancers or singers a realisticexpectation of what the music will sound like in performance.

Another type of music making that sometimes makes use of transcriptionstakes place in households, at the hands of amateurs. Edward Said mentionsthese transcriptions in his book Musical Elaborations: This practice arguesthe steady presence of amateur musicians who could not readily obtain ordecipher full scores but whose desire to play the music could be satisfied byreading and playing it in piano versions.40 Again we see the presuppositionof an element in a musical culture, one that Roland Barthes calls musicapractica.41 Eighteenth-century keyboard transcriptions of Handels over-tures provide an excellent example. These transcriptions had to incorpo-rate an experiential representation of the transcribed work if they were toachieve their purpose of making the original accessible in the household. Inaddition, they could incorporate an aspectual representation of the music.

Living musical traditions are built up, in part, by repeated performanceof individual works over time. More generally, they remain alive onlythrough a continuity of cross-referencing within the tradition; indeed, thetradition can be seen as consisting of a web of such cross-references. Some

Transcriptions 21

39. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, 45556.40. Edward Said, Musical Elaborations (London: Vintage, 1992), 5.41. Barthes, Musica Practica, in Image-Music-Text: Essays Selected and Translated by

Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977). Incidentally, Barthes held that this type of musicmaking no longer exists.



of these cross-references are from one work to another, from transcriptionto original; these include the kind of illuminating, transforming, and parody-ing practices characteristic of successful transcriptions such as Goulds DieMeistersinger Prelude, Weberns Bach Ricercar, or Tatums Elegy.

Another type of cross-referencing within a tradition occurs when a workrefers not to another work, but to a practice. Said finds this kind of cross-referencing in the virtuoso piano transcriptions of composers such as Liszt:The transcription for public concert purposes of operas, of music forother instruments (especially the organ) and for voice, as well as of full-scaleorchestral works . . . makes a new kind of statement about the act of per-formance itself.42 It is true that Liszt has emulated the faithful engraver inaiming for a high degree of accuracy in his Beethoven transcriptions. Andit is true, as he himself says, that the transcriptions have an aesthetic aim.But talk of fidelity and beauty falls far short of capturing what is so daringabout the ambition of these works and what is so stunning about their suc-cess. That ambition and success justify the claim that these transcriptions,in addition to illuminating or transforming the music they transcribe, alsomake a new kind of statement about the act of keyboard performance.

Liszts transcriptions of Beethovens symphonies fall, then, into Daviessfourth category (transcriptions designed to reflect upon the work transcribed).In this category we should also place Busonis and Godowskys Bach, alongwith Tatums Elegy. One notable quality of transcriptions in the fourth cat-egory lies in the fact that they do not merely adapt the music to a newmusical medium, but do so in a way that exploits the new mediums possibil-ities. Only by so doing can the transcription hope to attract attention tothose possibilities, thereby making a statement about the medium.

There is a craft of music, and it embraces a multitude of skills, includingthe skill of orchestration. This skill is supposedly taught by the pedagogicaluse of transcriptions (piano reductions), as in Daviess second type of tran-scription. Such a practice presupposes that there is something to be learnedabout orchestration by this means. The transcription produced by the bud-ding orchestrator can be regarded as an intentional representation of thepiano score that formed its basis: it selects elements from the piano score,maps orchestral elements onto them, and applies a certain treatment.

The craft of music also includes the capacity to reconcile content andmediuma capacity that Davies regards as essential to transcription. Thisability presupposes the existence of practitioners who have the judgment to

42. Said, Musical Elaborations, 6.


discern a musical works content and also the practical knowledge of whatis and what is not performable in a given medium. Earlier, we saw reasonto think that Walsh (at least in his Esther transcription) was not fully adeptat this craft.

Summary

According to Busonis idealist account, transcription is a realization of theoriginal composers abstract idea. By this device Busoni hopes to persuadeus that transcription possesses all the value that we attribute to originalcomposition. In fact, transcriptions as such do not possess the value thatwe attribute to original musical compositions, composers do not usuallywork from an abstract idea, and transcription is not a type of realization.

The approach I have adopted is a realist one, but one that recognizesintentional relations and accordingly recognizes a difference between natu-rally occurring realities and realities that exist as a result of cultural pro-duction. The primary reality with which a transcriber works is a preexist-ing score. The minimal aims of transcription are twofoldto represent theworks content, and to do so in a new medium. Given these aims, a success-ful transcription must reconcile the aims of preserving the works contentand of writing a piece that is playable in the new medium. In order to doso, the transcriber must first determine what is to count as the originalworks content. A transcription stands to its original work in a relation ofintentional representation. The representation must be experiential, and itmay or may not be aspectual. An aspectual transcription, if it is internallycoherent, may illuminate, transform, or parody its work.

Transcriptions 23


Busoni treats variations as similar to transcriptions, and this is understand-able, because variation and transcription are two ways of arranging amodel. If variation is a species of arrangement, however, then whatever istrue of all arrangements applies to all variations. Using this general principle,Busoni argues that those musical literalists who deplore all arrangementswhile esteeming variations are involved in an inconsistency:

Strangely enough, the Variation-Form is highly esteemed by theWorshippers of the Letter. This is singular; for the variation-formwhen built up on a borrowed themeproduces a whole series ofarrangements which, besides, are least respectful when mostingenious.

So the arrangement is not good, because it varies the original;and the variation is good, although it arranges the original.1

Two different arguments jostle for attention here. On the one hand,there is an argument against the Worshippers of the Letterthose who

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